Saturday 15 March 2008

Match it For Pratchett!

The headline is not mine. It was coined by Cory Doctorow, of BoingBoing. -he picked up on another blog, (Ceci N'est Pas Une Blog), and reported with that headline.
(Stop Press: Pat Cadigan, author of Ceci.. says it was a person named Steve Glover who coined the phrase. No further information.)
It caught my eye, I hope it catches yours. BoingBoing is huge, Gritinthegears is a speck of dust but maybe.... just maybe... my blogging visitors might pick up and re-use that title, and spread this idea.

Terry Pratchett, he of Discworld fame, prolific writer, creative soul, persistent advocate for orangutans, announced that he was giving a million dollars, or five hundred thousand pounds to The Alzheimers Research Trust . He recently announced he had been diagnosed with Alzheimers disease, and had been stunned to find out how little official funding is given to this illness, compared with, say, cancer, or heart disease.
Pat Cadigan of Ceci N'est.... said "Hearing that, it occurred to me that if half a million of us all donated a pound to Alzheimer's research, we could match his donation and make it an even million.
So whaddaya say, guys? It's a pound. That's about 2 bucks US dollars, give or take a couple of (US) pennies. You can spare that much. Go here and make your donation. Tell them it's in honour of Terry Pratchett."

I'm not myself an avid reader of Discworld novels, I confess. The first one I read was "Truckers", and I loved it, but for some reason I never really could be bothered with the discworld series.
But every time I've seen Terry Pratchett interviewed, or read articles, or seen him in a documentary, meeting Orangutans in the forests of Borneo, I've warmed to him as a person.
All of us, however, know people who have lost family members to Alzheimers disease, and have seen people struggling with loss of their own minds.

Maybe I'll write more about that one day.
We can't fix everything. We can't fight everything. But here's a little something, and it's easy. Why not give a pound.. or two Dollars, to aid Alzheimers research.
Here's the link again: Here. Tell them its to "Match it for Pratchett".
The link I gave is in the U.K., but you could just give to a research trust in your home country if you preferred. And feel free to link, or blog using the same title.

STOP PRESS! There's now an official site!
http://www.matchitforpratchett.org/
created and administered by Chris Tregenza.

Here's an extract of the latest figures.

"Summary of Accounts as of 19/3/2008 at 15:10"

Donations via MatchItForPratchett.org: $3382

T-Shirt sales (Completed and Pending): $590

Costs (Paypal Charges): $-150.22

Total Raised via MatchItForPratchett.org: $3821.78

"

Doing well! Please visit there and show your support...
Don't forget to BUY THE T-SHIRT!!!!

7 comments:

  1. Just in the interest of accuracy:

    A Scot named Steve Glover coined "Match It For Pratchett" after reading this.

    ReplyDelete
  2. A Worthy Cause & I Have Donated.I have never read him but ,yes, he does come across as a good bloke.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I was just lucky to be the first to type it in: there were others coming up with the same name at the same time....

    (and I'm Norn Irish, I just happen to live in Scotland)

    ReplyDelete
  4. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Wireless, your comment looked suspiciously like spam to me.
    You also lied about posting a link to me. And I noticed there was a comment on your "blog" which contained exactly the same text as your comment here, except for the link.
    So I suspect you are not a real blogger but a webspammer, and if so, though I do try to be a nice guy, you are not welcome here.
    Oh. And I'm highly unlikely to buy anything based on a text in portuguese, which I can't read.
    If you are a real person, then perhaps you could explain why you apparently cut and pasted somebody else's comment from your blog onto mine?

    ReplyDelete
  6. Pat....
    Thanks for update...Still a good thing you setting it rolling.
    Tony: well done. I have read a bit... Maybe I'll read a bit more.
    I think I'd rather just die than have my mind fall apart. It must be very scary to get the diagnosis.
    Steve: well, yes, on reflection it looks like someone was bound to think of it. Easy with hindsight... But you are the one who did it.

    ReplyDelete
  7. what ? No abla de Portyougeese?
    Hey Souby, i been kinda gone...fact of the matter is the blogging has been a bit boring for me...
    Thought about you last week...my good friend Buddy Whittington was touring through europe last month and I wished I'd given you a heads up...Buddy is Mayalls Lead Guitarist and has just put out his first Original collection...then toured w/o big daddy John!
    Thats steppin out!
    I'll try to follow up on this...you know it hits close to me.

    ReplyDelete


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